3 of 23

Write now Article Tools

One may debate the meaning of the object/subject distinction just as the philosophical issue of the Kantian and empirical synthetic/analytic distinction was challenged by W.V. Quine and overthrown successfully in 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism'. We find from a further analysis of Quine's philosophical publications in linguistics and logic that science is itself a subject of epistemology (theory of knowledge) and that epistemology falls into the field of psychology with everything being part of the discipline of philosophy. History is a linguistic activity. That is history falls into a verbal ontological structure of its own, as do other specialized research criteria and other word constructions-each have their own ontology or universe with their own word specialties.

The subjective/objective point of view of either universal ontologies of experience or perception are difficult to defend. Human life occurs within the Universe itself and each verbal or linguistic ontology constructed about it is incomplete and at some point personal. The sole entirely objective paradigm for an objective ontology would be that provided in a divine revelation. Otherwise human language use and experience inclusive of knowledge about it are phenomenal. The value of historical constructions for ontology would be found in their representation of known historical fact in the most accurate way possible in language. Philosophical pragmatism such as C.S. Pierce developed is the basic test for effectiveness of a historical ontology or scientific; does the construction best represent the known facts of what is targeted for description?

The subject of this essay is 'why history can never be objective'. The author of the topic probably meant that no historian can write an historical portrait from all points of view- here making a physical analogy to a 360 degree perspective. Yet if a history writer has one point place in space-time and culture from which to view a given historical reference it does not therefor invalidate the 'objectivity' of his point of view. A biased reference is still a reference that may be adjoined with so many others as so much data from which a fuller, thicker view of history may be constructed.

Historical objectivity may be a concatenation of myriad subjective points of view, keeping in mind the fundamentally transcendent nature of the phenomenalism in which language and epistemology occurs. We all occupy are own little niche of space-time viewing the apparent, evident

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Why history can never be objective?
We want to hear your view. Write now!